A Visit to Where Israel Was Born

Allan Rabinowitz, The Jerusalem Post, October 30, 1997

The State of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948, in the simple yet elegant stucco building that then housed the Tel Aviv Art Museum. Outside that building, Rothschild Boulevard is full of traffic and garbage. But inside Independence Hall—as it is now called— you can be carried back in imagination to that moment Israel was created.

It is easy to forget today that despite the UN resolution of November 1947, calling for a Jewish state in partitioned Palestine, the creation of that state was far from certain. The term of the British Mandate ended in May 1948, and the Jewish state almost did not happen.

In the increasingly tense weeks preceding British withdrawal, many nations displayed little support for the very resolution that had passed. Undeclared war, raging sporadically since December, had become increasingly intense and open as the British began pulling out, with all-out war expected to explode as the Union Jack was lowered. The United States was spearheading an effort for a truce and possible UN trusteeship, though there were splits within the Truman administration over this.

On May 12, Jewish leaders gathered in Tel Aviv to face the question of whether to declare statehood two days later, when the British left, or to wait until some future date as the US was urging—indeed demanding—under the proposed truce plan. Faced with the specter of both military siege and possible diplomatic isolation, the Jewish leadership was hurled into a crisis.

The dilemma deeply split the National Council of Thirteen, the governing body under David Ben-Gurion. On the one hand, delay might offer a chance to strengthen Jewish defenses and, with an American-backed truce, defusing the threat of all-out Arab invasion. And the Jews had recently captured vital areas, including Tiberias, Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, and Safed. In Jerusalem, Arab forces had been driven from some suburbs.

Moreover, Jerusalem’s 100,000 Jews remained under siege and were threatened with starvation, and the Etzion settlement bloc teetered on collapse (in the end, it fell before statehood was declared). The Jewish front had no depth, desert settlements were isolated, and the Judean hills were under Arab control. In addition the Jewish forces had no reserves and little weaponry or ammunition.

But Ben-Gurion insisted that the future political situation was volatile and unpredictable, that as a state they could more easily acquire weapons, that military victory was possible, and most vitally, that the window of opportunity might not recur.

So by a vote of six to four, the armistice proposal was rejected; Jewish statehood would be declared. Accompanying the excitement, the sense of destiny and history, was the dread of certain invasion.

With the die cast, less than 48 hours remained to prepare a ceremony. The ceremony was supposed to be secret—one well-placed bomb could wipe out the entire Jewish leadership of Palestine—and was held in an art museum because it was fairly small.

Interestingly, the city of Tel Aviv and the State of Israel thus shared a birthplace. In 1909, 66 families gathered on a sand dune to divide up the lots of what became Tel Aviv. Meir Dizengoff, the civic leader who later became the city’s first mayor, built his home on that dune; and after the death of his wife he turned it into the city’s art museum.

High drama was now laced with chaotic comedy. The 350 rapidly scribbled invitations were secretly dispatched, yet by the morning of the declaration, even a Japanese paper had announced the event.

Arrangements were as sparsely and hastily made as the bunting across the ceremonial table. A dusty portrait of Theodor Herzl was dragged up from the basement, and two huge Zionist flags were found but were so filthy they had to be laundered. The chairs were borrowed from cafes, the microphone from an appliance store, with its name attached and visible. Two thousand years of exile were ending with a bargain- basement celebration.

Squabbles then ensued over every aspect of the independence, such as whether to cite borders, the use of God’s name, and the very name of the state. In Washington, Jewish Agency officials submitting a formal request for recognition of the new state did not know what name to use.

A parchment suitable for the historic document was found, with difficulty. But Ben- Gurion rewrote the entire text the night before the ceremony, and the final typed draft was approved with only two hours left—not enough time for the parchment to be inscribed.

The scrambling lasted until, at 4 p.m., Ben-Gurion banged his gavel to open the proceedings. Then the power of the event took over. A crowd surrounded the "secret" location. People around Palestine huddled around their radios, except in Jerusalem, where the daily bombardment of Jewish neighborhoods cut off the broadcast.

Today, in the main hall of the house—where Ben-Gurion sat backed by Herzl’s portrait—you can hear the recording of his controlled monotone reading out the charter for the new state. You can picture the National Council on the dais (the table is a replica, but the chair behind it and the dais and the carpet are the originals), wondering with ecstasy, wonder, and dread what this gesture would bring upon the Jewish people. When the new Jewish state, "to be called the State of Israel," was proclaimed, the audience rose and burst into applause. The Sheheheyanu blessing was recited.

"My eyes filled with tears," Golda Meir later wrote, "and my hands shook. We had done it. . . . Whatever price any of us would have to pay for it, we had recreated the Jewish national home."

The council members solemnly signed the blank parchment scroll—the text had to be inscribed later. You can hear the taut emotion squeezed into every note of the recording of "Hatikva," as sung and played by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. When the last strains faded, Ben-Gurion said, "The State of Israel has arisen. This session is closed," and then banged the gavel.

The crowds outside broke into song and dance. The US stunned both Israel and the UN with its immediate recognition of the new state. By the next morning, Arab armies were invading and the Egyptian Air Force was bombing Tel Aviv.

A glance at current headlines might numb you into cynicism as Israel stumbles, bleeds, and argues its way to age 50. But a visit to Independence Hall will remind you how wondrous it was when it came into being at all.